


Five Times Face Didn't Want to be Hanniba's Boy (and one time he was really glad he was)

by therealfroggy



Category: A-Team (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:20:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therealfroggy/pseuds/therealfroggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kind of sad. Another one off a LiveJournal kink meme, but it turned into angst instead of smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Face Didn't Want to be Hanniba's Boy (and one time he was really glad he was)

**One**  
“Face, don't do it. You're gonna get caught. Again.”

“So? What's it to you, boss?” Face says, his tone mocking. He's applying aftershave, busy eyeing himself in the cracked mirror hanging on the wall of their tent.

“Templeton. I've worked hard to get you on this unit, and if you get yourself thrown in the locker for molesting a recruit, it's both our asses on the line,” Hannibal says, voice tired and eyes dark.

Face scoffs. “Sorry, boss, that ain't my problem. Good night.”

Then he takes off out of the tent, sneaks off into the shadows and avoids the areas where he'd have to salute people and greet his friends from other units. He's aware that the yellow bar on his shoulder doesn't exactly cut him a lot of slack, and it wouldn't cut him any if the whole camp didn't know he answered directly to major Hannibal Smith. So he keeps out of everybody's way until he reaches the camp hospital.

“Good evening, first lieutenant Peck,” the nurse says, batting her eyelashes at him. She's been waiting for him outside the small supply shack, and she's petite and blonde.

“Good evening, nurse Woods,” he replies, grinning.

Fuck it if he's spending his Saturday night sitting in their tent, playing cards with Hannibal, when all this is right here, waiting for him. The old man can damn well entertain himself. It's not like Face is his son or anything.

 **Two**  
Face takes another kick to the stomach, groaning but laughing, too. He laughs and grins and makes it his personal mission to make it look like he's having the time of his life, taking a beating from these Black Forest punks. He's pretty sure they're going to leave it at cuts and bruises, but just in case he curls his legs up so they won't get at his balls.

The leader, this shithead named Jackson, delivers one last punch to his face and spits on him, adding insult to injury. “Next time you come around our barracks with that stupid grin on your face, you can be sure we're going to carve it into place. Permanently. I suggest you start introducing yourself, pretty boy.”

Then they leave, guffawing and probably slapping each other on the backs.

Face groans as he gets off the floor, spitting blood and trying to wipe Jackson's saliva out of his hair. Fuck, that's gonna mess his do up real bad. Not to mention he'll have a black eye, two if he's lucky, and a split lip for about a week. Not getting any for a week, then. Face sighs and heads back to their tent.

Okay, so he should have told them which unit he belonged to. He should have just told them his name. It would have saved him a lot of pain. But it just eats at him, whenever he tells people his name and rank, that they raise their eyebrows and ask, “Hannibal's boy?” Because apparently, everybody knows lieutenant colonel Hannibal Smith, and everybody seems to think that Face must be hanging on the man's every word like everybody else.

It pisses him off, actually. He's a good soldier and a grown man. He doesn't need his fucking CO and his fucking overbearing ways, looking over his shoulder and doing this annoying over-protective thing. He really, really doesn't need that from Hannibal. It's cramping his style.

So Face had grinned at the Black Forest idiots and told them it didn't matter, and how about he joined their poker game? Jackson and his goons had gotten... aggravated.

When he gets back to the tent he shares with Hannibal and the handful of other guys on their team, he knows he's looking like Death warmed over and of course, the only people there are Hannibal and Flanaghan, a rookie sergeant they're trying to initiate into intel work.

“Christ, kid, what happened to you?” Hannibal exclaims, getting off his ass pretty quickly and pushing Flanaghan out of the way to get to Face. “Flanaghan, get the first aid kit. Do you need a doctor, Face?”

Face grimaces and turns away from Hannibal's questing fingers. He's not Hannibal's boy, fuck it! “Flanaghan, can you patch me up? It's not that bad.”

Hannibal backs off, a look of disappointment in his eyes. He doesn't speak, just goes back to the maps he was studying and sits back down. When Flanaghan is done, Face is about to get his ass into his bunk when Hannibal claps him gently on the shoulder.

“I hope you broke someone's nose for this, kid.”

Face sighs. He hasn't. But he's sure as hell not going to tell Hannibal that, because then the man will pull a stunt like he's actually his protector, and then it won't be Hannibal's boy but Hannibal's _boy_. So he shuts his mouth and goes to sleep.

 **Three**  
They're in some low-rent bar and a gigantic biker-type dude is putting the moves on Face. Hannibal is about to pop a vessel or something, the tension's rolling off him in waves. Biker Dude has tattoos and a beard, filling just about every stereotype requirement Face can think of, and he's so not going there. Also, they're on a scouting job. The job comes first.

“Sorry, man, I don't swing that way,” Face says, shrugging and turning back to Hannibal.

“Yeah, you do, pretty boy. You're doin' U-turns all over the place; you ain't foolin' anyone. Now how 'bout you share some o' that tail with a hard-workin' citizen, old man? Looks like you've got more'n you can handle,” Biker Dude says, and his accent is something else, Face thinks with a snort.

“There's no tail to share,” Hannibal growls, putting his whiskey down on their table and standing up. “And if there was, a low-life like you would have to fetch it over my maggot-eaten corpse.”

“Well, since you ask so nicely,” Biker Dude drawls, going for his belt, and Face just knows there's a big-ass knife there somewhere, behind all that gut.

Face stands up, too, pushing Hannibal down. “Sit down, boss. This has nothing to do with you.”

Hannibal resists for a moment, but complies stiffly. Then Face steps close to the biker type, grabs his shoulder and pulls him down closer, and just when the grinning fuckwad thinks he's got his way, Face delivers a swift kick to his groin and a chop to the side of his neck. Biker Dude gives a strangled yell, then sinks to the floor clutching at himself. He whimpers like a kicked puppy and Face smiles down at him.

“U-turn that, dickhead.”

He leaves the bar, knowing Hannibal will follow him now that their cover is compromised. When they get back in the borrowed car, Hannibal turns to him, but Face gets ahead of his colonel. “Next time, don't aggravate the situation, boss. I don't need help.”

“You're a member of my unit, lieutenant. It's my call if a situation needs aggravating or not,” Hannibal says, but insanely enough, he doesn't sound angry or pissed. He sounds so damn tired.

They get a few miles away from the bar before Face starts regretting his harsh treatment of the other man. He knows no other commander would have let him get away with such behaviour, and Hannibal does act like his father half the time, so he shouldn't be surprised. But just as he's about to speak, they reach base and it's time to regale the mess tent with stories of his glorious victory.

He figures Hannibal will still be there in the morning, and leaves the colonel sitting in the dark car.

 **Four**  
Face has been in love with Hannibal for a few years now. He's not really sure how it began, or when he realized that the warm Hannibal-related glow inside his abdomen was love, or if it's still infatuation after so long. It's not important. He knows that his heart races a little extra when the older man stands close to him. He knows that he can't sleep at night if he's not in the same tent as Hannibal. He knows that he'd run straight into gunfire to save his CO. All in all, Face has concluded that he loves Hannibal more than anything, and if they could just get around to the fucking part, that'd be fine by him.

The problem is, Hannibal obviously doesn't consider him a potential mate, if the colonel's behaviour is anything to go by. Sure, he's good to Face and the lieutenant can't complain, what with all the slack he's cut, and the liberties he's allowed both on base and off it. Hannibal ruffles his hair and says, “Atta boy!” when Face does his job right, which he usually does. Hannibal sneaks him an extra bottle of beer whenever the General gets a shipment, and hands it over to Face with a warm smile. Hannibal's a great CO, and their newly acquired team mates – BA and Murdock – seem to be happy as clams under his command.

Face used to be, too, but he doesn't like the way things stand between them now.

So he's tried, obviously, to make Hannibal think about him in other terms. He's tried giving the colonel his special want-to-have- _me_ -for-lunch smile, but all that got him was a playful punch in the shoulder and a comment on who his next date was likely to be. Face tried innocently falling asleep in the colonel's bunk, but Hannibal carried him back to his own so gently Face knew he wouldn't have woken up if he'd actually _been_ asleep. Hannibal even tucked him in, like a fucking ten year-old.

Right now, he's about to try yet another tactic. He's wandering about the team's tent wearing just a low-slung towel, hoping to get a physical reaction out of Hannibal if nothing else. But Hannibal's been ignoring him for at least five minutes, and there's really no excuse to put off getting dressed any longer. With a sigh, Face pulls his pants on and sits down on his bunk, feeling miserable.

He's been staring at the floor for a few moments when the bunk dips next to him and he looks up to find Hannibal, eyes worried, shoulder to shoulder with him.

“What's wrong, kid?”

Face scrunches his eyes shut. Oh, please, anything but “kid”! Can't Hannibal see him as a grown man, just this once? As an equal, not his boy?

“Come on, you can tell me about it,” Hannibal coaxes, and then his big hand is in Face's hair and he ruffles it like he would his... his son, Face realizes with a pang.

“I'm not your boy, Hannibal, so you can just drop the fatherly talk,” he snaps, and gets up in a huff, heading out of the tent. He doesn't even greet Murdock, who's cooking outside, just stalks angrily towards the mess tent.

Fuck it, he thinks, all the anger going out of him and leaving only a bitter aftertaste, he'll always be Hannibal's boy. And he hates it.

 **Five**  
Face has had one drink for courage, a smoke to calm his nerves, and now Hannibal's right there, in front of him, wondering what the hell is going on. Face can see why the older man would be confused; he is, after all, looking at a completely naked Templeton Peck in the bedroom that the boss is supposed to share with BA tonight (Face got him a new woofer for his van to get him out of the safehouse for a little while). A naked Face with intent in his eyes and a small tube of lube in his hand.

“Kid, you've got three minutes to explain before I call Murdock's doctor,” Hannibal says, sitting down on the edge of his bed.

“I'd say this is pretty obvious, boss,” Face says, winking at the other man. “Or do you want a full play-by-play of all I was thinking of letting you do to me tonight?”

His bravado is all fake and Hannibal probably knows, but Face can't stop now or he'll probably start blushing and stuttering and ruin everything.

“Face, I don't know what you think I want from you, but this isn't it,” Hannibal says, voice gentle. “I love you, kid, but -”

“But not like that?” Face says, voice wavering just a little. He really, really hates that he's not wearing clothes right now. “What, you don't like guys?”

“Not in general, no,” Hannibal says, and fuck it, his voice is still all soft and tender, as if he's trying to calm Face down. Which, Face supposes, wouldn't be a bad idea right now. “I don't think you know what you need, Face. You think this is it, but I'm not... I wouldn't be good for you.”

Face laughs, almost hysterical. He throws his hands up in the air. “Oh, right! Because the great Hannibal Smith knows what's best for everyone, right? We can't possibly figure that out for ourselves! Did it ever occur to you, _colonel_ , that I'm a grown man? I'm not your little boy! I never was!”

And Hannibal's eyes are so sad, meeting his, that Face just gets angrier. He pounces on the older man, tackling him to the bed, pawing his dick through his fatigues. Hannibal tries batting his hands away, but there's no strength in the action, and Face knows the older man is just holding back.

“Are you going to tell me,” Face demands, rubbing Hannibal and gleefully noticing the older man's stirring erection, “that this does nothing for you? You don't want this at all? That this is just something I _think_ I want?”

“Kid, please,” Hannibal says, and reaches up to stroke Face's cheek.

Face stops, releases Hannibal, sits back. The oddly gentle touch to his face has put him completely off his track. “Don't call me that, Hannibal. It's killing me here, to know that I want you so badly and all you do is think of me as your son or something. Just like BA or Murdock. I... Don't call me kid. I'm not -”

“You're not my son, I know, Face,” Hannibal sighs, sitting up and handing Face the blanket, letting the younger man cover himself up. “When I call you kid, it's... It's just a mark of affection, and I've always felt... protective... of you. Possessive, perhaps. But you need someone -”

“If you say younger, I'm going to shoot you in the kneecap,” Face says, and he hates how his voice sounds sullen and whiny.

“Face. I love you, I really do. And I... I'm not immune to your charms; I don't see how anyone could be,” Hannibal says, and his hand is stroking Face's shoulders gently, just like always. “But it seems to me like you've got daddy issues, k- Templeton.”

Face has to close his eyes against the other man's calm demeanour. It's frustrating and annoying at the same time. “So, what, do I need to prove myself to you? Do I need to show you that I'm actually an adult, and how long I've been thinking about you like this? Because I can make you see me as your equal, Hannibal, you just give me a little time.”

Hannibal turned a little to look Face right in the eyes. “You're serious about this, aren't you?”

Face rolled his eyes. “Get with the program, _daddy_. Your little boy's all grown up.”

A spark of heat lit up Hannibal's eyes at that, and the older man turned his face away quickly. But Face had noticed. He'd seen the shiver go through Hannibal's entire body when Face had called him daddy. The younger man's mouth twisted with anger.

“Oh wow, boss. I never thought I'd see you hold someone up to a standard you'd never meet yourself. Guess you know all about daddy issues, huh?” Face said, and he meant it to hurt.

Hannibal covered his eyes with a hand, turning away from Face. “Kid, I'm sorry. I never wanted this. As I said, I won't be good for you.”

Face got up, dropped the blanket vindictively, and did his best to give Hannibal a long, good look at what he'd just missed. “I heard you, sir. I guess I won't ever really be your boy, huh?”

And he left the room, leaving a mortified Hannibal behind and taking all his wounded pride with him. He didn't know which one of them was more fucked up.

 **... And The One Time He Was Really Glad He Was**  
Face is panting, gulping down air, not really feeling the oxygen but needing it badly. He feels as if every last cell in his body is screaming for air, for help, for anything so long as they get it _now_. He's shaking and shivering all over, his hands so badly so that he can't even hold on to the rim of the boat but has to let BA pull him up like a ragdoll.

“Facey! How's he doing, bossman?” Murdock whimpers, hesitantly touching Face's forehead the moment the conman hits the deck.

BA gives Hannibal a hand, pulling the older man out of the water as well, but Hannibal is at least standing on his own two feet the moment he gets on board. The colonel gently pushes Murdock out of the way so he can get to Face, holding the conman's head up so he can check his eyes and breath.

“Find me a blanket, captain, or something warm,” Hannibal says, and Murdock salutes and hops to obey. “BA, take us ashore.”

The big man slowly turns the speedboat about and makes for land, while Murdock throws things around in a frenzy, looking for something to warm Face up with. Hannibal pulls the remnants of the heavy chains off Face, dropping them into the water as he gets them off. The bad guys had really been creative this time; positively medieval. Chains and a sack of bricks? Yeah. Really medieval.

Face is still shivering and gasping, and Hannibal begins to worry. Hadn't he gotten him in time? Had he been under too long? No, Hannibal had dived in at the very moment he'd seen the would-be mobsters push Face off their boat; leaving BA and Murdock to handle their foes, he'd dived and struggled against the flow of water until he'd found Face and cut the chains holding the sack in place (he'd never loved a pair of bolt cutters more).

“Face? Kid, talk to me. Are you okay? Face?” he murmurs, shaking Face gently.

“I was gonna die,” Face suddenly gasps, stiff fingers clutching at Hannibal's soggy shirtfront. “I couldn't breathe. Can't breathe. Couldn't shift the weight and...”

Oh. They all have their fears, and apparently, drowning doesn't sit too well with Face. The kid is nearly in shock, staring straight ahead with frightened eyes and babbling. Hannibal knows he has to pull him back from there, or this could get ugly.

“Hey, kid. Kid. You're safe now,” he coaxes, pulling Face close to him, holding the younger man to his chest, rocking him gently. “I've got you, Templeton. I'm not letting you go. We're up now, feel that? Take a deep breath, kid; you can breathe now.”

Murdock presents a raggedy old woollen blanket, and between them, they get most of Face's clothes off and Hannibal wraps him snugly in the blanket. Then he pulls him back into his lap, rocking him slowly.

“It's okay, kid. I've got you. You're safe,” he keeps repeating, nuzzling softly into Face's hair and throat. But Face merely whimpers and presses closer against Hannibal's chest. Hannibal sighs. He hates to see any of his boys suffer, but with Face, it's even worse. He'd do pretty much anything to relieve the kid of his discomfort.

“Hey, kid, remember when I told you...” he begins, but Face's shaking changes rhythm and now the younger man is sobbing, almost hiccuping into Hannibal's chest.

“I was gonna die,” Face wails softly. “I was gonna die, boss, and we'd still be fucked up.”

“Shh, kid, don't worry about that,” Hannibal soothes, stroking down Face's back. “I'd never let you die, you know that? Not you. Not my boy.”

And Face loves him for that. Not for saving his ass, not for getting him warm when he's out of the water, but for holding him and telling him there's no way he's ever letting go. He snuggles into Hannibal's broad chest, and yeah, he knows that. He really is Hannibal's boy and that won't change. Ever.


End file.
